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A shadowy back alley. Sinister men. A lone, smiling girl.

It was the kind of scenario one might find only in a novel, yet Marian could find no joy in the fact that she was the target.

Such incidents were meant for the protagonists of stories, not for her. Being in such a situation was far from amusing.

To resolve this matter peacefully, Marian spoke in a soft tone.

“Excuse me, I must have taken a wrong turn. I’ll just head back, so could you please pretend you didn’t see me?”

Of course, that was wishful thinking.

“Hehe, not gonna happen. As you can see, this is our territory.”

“A girl like you shouldn’t be wandering around here. I think we need to collect an ‘entrance fee’.”

Their crude dialogue clearly reflected their level.

Marian could read the filthy desires in their eyes. Men in high society often cast similar glances at her.

Although now it was rougher and the desires were less concealed.

A man with sparse teeth reached out toward Marian, and she slapped his hand away forcefully.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“Huh? Are you crazy—”

“Can’t you see this uniform? I’m a student of Philion Academy. If you lay a finger on me, the gendarmerie and the capital city gendarmerie will turn this place upside down. You really don’t want to spend your life in an underground prison, so you’d better leave me alone.”

Thanks to Marian’s confident tone and the certainty in her voice, the men fell into a hushed murmur, hesitating to approach her any further.

They instinctively sensed it. The woman before them was not of ordinary status.

At the mention of the academy and the gendarmerie, the men exchanged glances, deliberating how to respond.

In that moment, the toothless man who had been slapped by Marian spat on the ground and, with a fierce face, spoke.

“So, is that gendarmerie even around here?”

“What…?”

“We’re just a bunch of wandering thugs. If we sell you out and scatter, how will those guys find us? You’re just an academy student? Then there’ll be even more people willing to buy you!”

The surrounding men nodded, as if agreeing with the toothless man’s assertion.

“What’s that…?”

To Marian, it was nothing but nonsensical blabber.

The gendarmerie was not just a bunch of scarecrows, and if someone who was supposed to work for the Empire was threatened, it was clear that the administrative office would respond actively. The academy would certainly dispatch security personnel to protect its students as well.

Marian had heard rumors about the existence of the dark alley. So she knew that the slave traders in the dark alley would never buy an academy student. They were well aware that doing so could ruin their entire business.

“That’s—”

She tried to inform them of this fact, but gave up.

Their eyes were already glazed over. They were not at a level where reason could reach them.

The moment that realization struck her, rage surged through Marian.

“Ha!”

Was she really to be mocked by a bunch of pathetic thugs from the poor district?

Her, Marian von Kalstein?

It was laughable to think she ever considered relying on Gwen.

Since when had she needed to depend on anyone else?

She had established herself all on her own in the noble social scene, like a den of vipers. In this situation, relying on someone else was an affront to her noble pride.

“Alright. Let’s see how this goes.”

Even though it was her first time being surrounded by men like this, panicking slightly, she thought, how scary could they be compared to Instructor Ion from combat practice class?

Marian wasn’t particularly skilled at fighting, but she was far from being a frail noble lady with no means of defense.

She slipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak and retrieved a gemstone orb the size of a fingernail.

Channeling magical energy into the four orbs, she threw them, and bright light burst forth as the orbs transformed into something the size of an adult man.

Shwoom!

Golem soldiers armed with swords and armor.

They surrounded Marian, standing guard.

“W-What is this!?”

“A wizard! It’s a wizard!”

Even that didn’t make sense to her.

While Marian knew how to control magical energy, that didn’t mean she was performing magic by concocting formulas to produce new phenomena.

It was the skill to create and manipulate artificial life forms like the artificial spirit “Zegler” and the doll golem “Shabti.”

These were soldiers created using alchemy.

“Attack!”

According to their master’s command, the soldiers advanced silently. The intimidating approach of the armed soldiers caught the men off guard, causing their voices to rise in panic.

“What are we going to do?! You never said there was a wizard!”

“…Damn! If we run away, that girl won’t leave us alone, right? Let’s take her down! It’s only four of them after all! We outnumber them!”

“Damn it! Aaaaah!”

The men each drew their weapons and rushed at the golem soldiers, but all their resistance was futile.

The golem soldiers rapidly subdued the men, thrusting their swords into their arms and legs.

Thwack!

“Gack!”

Wham!

“Gahhhh! My, my leg!!”

The strength of the golem soldiers wasn’t particularly strong. They were only at the level of being able to face off against imperial soldiers one-on-one.

So their thought of overpowering them with numbers wasn’t entirely wrong.

However, that was only true if they were human soldiers.

Golem soldiers, who didn’t fear injury and continued to fight even when wounded, instilled dread in their opponents. And the one controlling them was none other than Marian.

‘What’s going on? This is easier than I expected?’

It was an obvious outcome when she thought about it.

No matter how inexperienced they were in their first year, Philion Academy was the finest institution in the Empire, as well as on the continent.

Marian was just overly intimidated due to her lack of real combat experience, but the students who excelled in their respective fields were already far beyond the level of ordinary people.

Unless she considered students from non-combat departments, the results she was achieving were entirely within expectations for any student who had even a modicum of combat skills.

“Then, I should call the gendarmerie.”

In the end, even though she had missed the pickpocket boy after parting ways with Gwen, she had caught the other members instead. Taking these guys to the gendarmerie headquarters for interrogation would help her find out what happened to Schurz’s wallet.

As soon as Marian mentioned the gendarmerie, the men sprawled on the ground visibly flinched. It seemed they finally grasped what their fate would be. Of course, as criminals, they were devoid of any sympathy.

In that moment, the toothless man pressed to the ground let out a sinister chuckle.

“Haha…! Do you think we’re just going to get caught like this? No, that can’t happen…!”

The man pulled a small vial from his pocket. Inside was finely ground red powder, and upon seeing it, the other men gasped in horror and shouted.

“Hey! That’s the item Boss gave us! If you take that…!”

“Shut up! Whether we die like this or that, we’re dead anyway!”

The man, looking completely deranged, opened the vial.

Marian didn’t know what it was, but something about it felt very wrong.

“Don’t!”

She commanded the golem to seize the vial from the man, but he was faster, pouring the contents into his mouth.

At that moment, the man’s face swelled with bulging veins, and his skin turned red.

He began to scream in agony. It was a deafening scream.

“Gwaaaah—!!”

The transformation happened in an instant. As the screaming man’s muscles tensed, a faint black magical energy emanated from his body.

Seeing the man morph into a monstrous form, Marian finally realized what the man had consumed.

“C-Could it be… Demon Shard!?”

There exists a unique red crystal found only in the Great Continent.

When finely ground into powder and even a tiny amount is inhaled, it turns a soldier into an invincible warrior, free from fear and pain.

The Empire and the Human Alliance discovered the effects of this red crystal through a small chance and decided to utilize it in the war against the Demon King’s Army, as soldiers who inhaled this powder had achieved remarkable results in battle.

Of course, there were side effects. Those who inhaled this powder experienced severe withdrawal symptoms and felt more lethargic than ordinary people when the effects wore off, with their bodies slowly deteriorating.

But considering humanity was faced with extinction, there was no luxury to ponder such issues, and the Empire widely distributed this red powder known as ‘Battle Awakening Agent’ to frontline soldiers.

However, it was soon discovered that this awakening agent had a very deadly side effect.

Those who inhaled the powder would lose their sanity and become violent, ultimately transforming into monsters—a serious adverse effect far beyond mere addiction.

Realizing that inhaling this powder could turn people into monsters, the Empire completely halted the distribution of the awakening agent and disposed of the remaining stock.

The awakening agent was no longer referred to by its original name but was now called ‘Demon Shard’ in reference to the essence of demonic beings, a fact Marian had heard from her grandfather.

“Why on earth is such a thing in the capital!”

The very existence of Demon Shard was shocking, and it was even more shocking that the man right in front of her had consumed it and transformed into a monster.

But this wasn’t the time to be surprised; she had to suppress that man somehow.

As Marian gestured to command, the golem soldiers raised their swords and charged at the man.

However, the man, now a monster, swung his thick arms, the size of a human waist, with great force, and the golem soldier who was struck shattered like broken pottery.

“This is insane….”

The golem soldiers were useful, but it cost as much to create one soldier as it would to raise a single apprentice knight.

Marian was horrified to see four of her golem soldiers instantly destroyed, ones she had previously been cautious not to damage in class, but now was not the time to lament that.

‘What do I do now?’

Marian fell into deep thought.

She still had a few gemstones left in her pocket for summoning golems. While she wasn’t confident in defeating this monster, she felt it might be possible to buy some time to escape.

But what if it followed her all the way to the main street?

What if that monster rampaged in front of countless people?

‘Grandfather… Instructor Ion…!’

Her worries were brief, and her decision was resolute.

As the granddaughter of the marquis Kalstein and a student of the Faceless Hero, she could not bring shame to that name.

With her mind set, Marian tightened her grip on the gemstone orb and prepared to throw it at the enemy. At that moment—

Shwoom!

Suddenly, a blinding light radiated from the surroundings, and a transparent wall made of light encased the monster on all sides.

“Gwaaaah!!”

As the monster swung its gigantic arms, no matter how hard it struck the wall, it remained completely unmoved.

In the face of this sudden turn of events, Marian blinked in surprise.

Then, she heard footsteps approaching from the opposite side of the alley.

Marian turned her head in shock. She was even more astonished than before.

“Who are you…?”

With long hair cascading like night, as if she had embraced the darkness, and beauty so stunning that even Marian, being a woman herself, could only stare in awe, it could only be said she was favored by a goddess.

There stood the saint, Charlotte Orsia.

 

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